CHAPTER XIV
STRANGE COMPANIONS
Dave knew at once that his shouts at the large birds must have attractedthe attention of the person who was now hailing him.
"Ahoy, yourself!" he cried, starting to his feet and peering expectantlythrough the mist in the direction from which the challenge had come.
In a few moments the outline of a yawl somewhat larger than the one Davewas in loomed up in the near distance. A man was seated in its bow,while two others rowed the boat.
They came alongside. All three looked haggard and worn out. In thebottom of their boat lay a broken demijohn. They reminded Dave ofsailors he had often seen on shipboard getting over a debauch.
"Why," said the man in the bow, staring in amazement at Dave, "if itisn't young Fearless, the diver!"
"I remember you, Mr. Daley," responded Dave, recognizing the speaker asone of the crew of the _Raven_. Dave had a dim memory, too, of havingseen Daley's two companions with Captain Nesik's crew.
Daley drew the two yawls close together with a boathook, and he and Davewere face to face.
"Young Fearless of the _Swallow_," he kept saying, in a marveling tone."And in this fix. Why, where did you ever come from?"
"Where did you, Mr. Daley?" inquired Dave directly. "Mine is a prettylong story--suppose you tell yours first?"
"Huh, that won't take much time," muttered Daley, with a savage kick atthe fragments of the demijohn. "We stole all that gold from you.Little good did it do us. Captain Nesik and the Hankers, after theymarooned you fellows, made a landing and divided up the gold into boxes.They put them on the _Swallow_. Well, when the _Swallow_ parted fromthe _Raven_ in a cyclone, she went down--gold, men aboard, and all."
"And the _Raven_?" inquired Dave.
"She drove on the rocks and has been disabled ever since. It would takea big steamer to pull her into service again," explained Daley. "Aftershe got into that fix Nesik decided to desert her. They made a camp onland on the west island of those you know about."
"What about the natives?" inquired Dave.
"They seemed to have all gone back to the main island except a few.These hung around and spied on us; most of them Nesik shot. He landedlots of provender and rum from the _Raven_. For a week Nesik let themen have their fill. He and the Hankers and that pawnbroker fellow----"
"Gerstein?" suggested Dave.
"Yes, Gerstein," nodded Daley. "Well, those four took the longboatwhich was saved from the wreck and went scouting, they called it. Theywent away and returned for several days. One day they came back on footwithout the longboat, and said that it and Gerstein had gone down in aquicksand. The men began to grow restive after another week. Theycouldn't understand what Nesik was lying idle for. They wondered whatmade him and Cal Vixen the diver and the Hankers so contented to justsquat down and loaf. The men got cross when Nesik cut down grubrations. A deputation waited on him."
"What was the result?" inquired Dave, with great interest.
"Nesik told them to do what they liked and go where they liked. Said hewas going to take his chances, waiting for a ship to come along. Resultwas, one by one the small craft of the _Raven_ were stolen. We nabbedthis boat one night and put to sea. We were bound to make some kind ofa try to get away from those islands."
"Have you any idea where we are now?" inquired Dave.
"Sure, I have," answered Daley. "We're in one of those tidal channelsthat run around the Windjammers' Island so freely. That's a queer thingabout these diggings. A fellow can row miles and drift back to theislands. Those channels are regular whirlpools in a storm."
"And what are you thinking of doing now?" asked Dave.
"Getting back to land of course. We wouldn't run across a ship in ahundred years on this out-of-the-way route. We can never hope to rowthousands of miles to a continent coast. No--provender being gone, andespecially the rum, we don't feel quite as bold as we did when westarted out," confessed Daley, with a dejected air.
"No," put in one of his companions lazily, "we'll go back and takepot-luck with what's left of the _Raven_ crowd."
"If they'll have us," put in his companion. "Looked to me all along asif for some purpose or other Nesik wanted to get rid of us."
"You're right there, mate," declared Daley. "I've thought that, too,many a time. Maybe he and his cronies calculated there would be moregrub around with fewer mouths to feed."
Dave thought over all the men had said. He fancied that he guessed outthe reason why Nesik was so willing to have his men leave him. He knewthat he would be asked to give information in return for what he hadreceived. Dave tried to decide how far he dared to trust the threecastaways.
"Now then," just as he expected, Daley spoke, "we've told you our story.How about yours? That's a _Raven_ boat there you're in. How did you getit?"
"I found it drifting loose a few hours ago," said Dave.
"That's likely enough," said Daley suspiciously, "but where was youwaiting for such things to drift around loose?"
"I was floating on a piece of driftwood," explained Dave. "You know youpeople marooned us on the island."
"I didn't," declared Daley; "that was Nesik's work."
"You helped," said Dave, "and you've had nothing but bad luck since.Now, Mr. Daley, I'm going to tell you something. You think the_Swallow_ was lost in the cyclone."
"Know it. Men, gold, and all."
"No," said Dave, watching his man closely to note the effect of hisdisclosures. "The _Swallow_ was not lost at all."
Daley stared hard and incredulously at Dave.
"How do you know?" he asked.
"Because I was aboard of her not twenty-four hours since. The truth is,in that cyclone she was driven ashore on the west island you speakabout. There Captain Broadbeam and the rest of us discovered her. Wefound Mr. Drake, the boatswain; Bob Adams, the engineer, and MikeConners, the cook, prisoners on board."
"That's right," nodded Daley; "those fellows wouldn't come in with us,and Nesik put them in irons. Go on."
"We also found some labeled boxes in the hold."
"The treasure!" cried Daley excitedly. "Alas, yes, it was all dividedand made into portions, so much for the Hankers, so much for Nesik, somuch for the crew. Why, we saw the Hankers divide it with our own eyes,didn't we, mates?"
"That we did," declared his two companions in unison.
"So Mr. Drake told us," resumed Dave. "Well, we liberated our friends,got the _Swallow_ in trim, and steamed away from the Windjammers' Islandabout three weeks ago."
"With all that gold!" cried Daley, with disappointed but covetous eyes."Oh, my mates, think of it!"
"No," interrupted Dave, "we thought the gold was there. The second homeport we reached we opened the boxes to see."
"It must have been a sight," said Daley gloatingly.
"It was," nodded Dave, with a queer little smile--"sand, lead, old junk,every box full of them, and not a gold coin there."
Daley sprang up in the boat with a wild cry. His companions partook ofhis excitement.
"Then--then----" panted Daley, with blazing eyes.
"Why, the Nesik crowd just deluded you poor foolish fellows. Exactly ashe did us," spoke Dave quietly, but with a definite emphasis. "As Isay, there was none of the treasure in the boxes. Where was it, then?Easy to guess. It was put in the boxes to delude you fellows and latersecretly removed to the _Raven_. Nesik intended to lose the _Swallow_some way. The cyclone helped him out."
Daley drew out a long-bladed knife. He began abusing Nesik and theHankers. He slashed the air in a frantic manner.
"I'll kill them for this, I'll kill them!" he raved. "Men, you'll helpme? Why," he exclaimed suddenly, "then the gold must be on the _Raven_,stuck on the rock, eh?"
"Hardly," answered Dave. "No, Nesik intended losing the _Swallow_,sailing for South America, getting rid of you fellows cheap, and then heand the Hankers and Gerstein would make a grand
division of the spoils.Their plans miscarried. The _Raven_ got wrecked. Don't you see they gotyou all ashore quick as they could? Without doubt those mysterious daysof scouting in the longboat, as you call it, were devoted to getting thegold ashore to some safe and secret hiding-place."
"Then we'll have our share," shouted Daley. "Mates, for shore; forshore, mates, to find those measly robbers, to pounce on them and makethem give up what belongs to us. Ha, more," declared Daley. "We'llkill them off; well take it all."
"Why, Mr. Daley," quietly suggested Dave, "it appears to me you areforgetting something."
"What's that?"
"That treasure belongs to my father and myself."
Daley looked sheepish, then surly.
"If you should get hold of it what could you do with it?" pursued Dave."You can't spend it on the Windjammers' Island. You can never get itaway from there except in a stanch vessel, such as may not come alongfor years. I should think," added Dave, "after all the trouble you haveseen grow out of the Hankers stealing what was not their own, you wouldtake a new tack."
"How, a new tack?" demanded Daley, surlily surveying Dave from under hisbushy, bent brows.
"Be square and honest. The _Raven_ people have deceived you. I have aproposition to make you. Put this whole matter in my hands, promise tohelp me work it out as I think best, and I'll guarantee you two things."
"What are they?" demanded Daley.
"First, that I will soon locate the hiding-place of the treasure--whichyou never may."
"That's so," mumbled one of Daley's companions, "everything has beenqueered that we tried to do so far."
"Secondly," added Dave, "when that treasure is found, I promise, if youcome in with me, to give each of you a liberal share of it."